The shared axis that made baccarat’s swings run one way

Dark navy briefing slide kicked “Table games desk · monthly hold review · Nevada statewide · Sep 2024 – Aug 2026” and headlined “Baccarat’s swings only run one way — and the way is down”. A standfirst says the four games sit on one shared ruler running 0 to 20%, the band table hold lives in; that hold is win as a share of drop, as printed in the Gaming Control Board’s monthly revenue reports, with all 24 months, nothing smoothed, nothing dropped and zero-based bars; and that roulette and baccarat top out at the same height while only baccarat falls to 8.5%. A gold chip reads “Demonstration · drawn by us from public data”. A two-by-two grid of blue monthly column charts, one per game, all on the same 0–20% axis. Twenty-One’s bars sit between about 10% and 15% (best 14.99%, worst 9.94%); craps’ between about 13% and 19% (best 18.88%, worst 12.82%). Roulette’s panel has seven bars ending flat against the top of the frame, four of them in a row from November to February; its header reads best month 20.00%, worst 11.97%. Two more roulette bars, January and April 2026, stop just short of the top. Baccarat’s panel has two adjacent bars flat against the top in December and January and one deep trough in September 2025; its header reads best month 20.00%, worst 8.54%. Down the right, a large gold “20.00%” reads “best month · roulette and baccarat alike — the two games top out level”. A read-out says baccarat’s good months reach the same ceiling as roulette’s but its bad months fall to 8.54% where roulette’s stop at 11.97%, so its volatility is all downside. A recommendation says to treat baccarat as the riskier game, plan its hold at the low end of its range and shift promotional spend toward roulette, which reaches the same top more often, 7 months against 2. A monospace table gives each game’s best and worst month read off the panel and its months at the top: Twenty-One 14.99%, 9.94%, 0; craps 18.88%, 12.82%, 0; roulette 20.00%, 11.97%, 7; baccarat 20.00%, 8.54%, 2. A last card says the axis is pinned at 20% so all four panels share one ruler and stay comparable month to month, and that Twenty-One and craps never come near it. A footer credits the Board’s monthly revenue reports as compiled by UNLV Special Collections & Archives and says the slide is a demonstration drawn by us, with the desk, read-out and recommendation invented and every hold figure real. — Showing the misleading chart

The same 24 months on a cream background, kicked “The same 24 months · the same shared ruler, run to 28% · hatched = the part above the old 20% maximum” and headlined “Baccarat’s “20%” month was 26.47% — the highest monthly hold in a record that runs back to 2004”. A standfirst says nothing in the data changed: the shared axis stopped at 20% and the data did not; nine bars ran past it, seven of roulette’s and two of baccarat’s, each drawn exactly 20% tall; and on a ruler run to 28% baccarat’s top month stands 6.28 points above roulette’s in the same January, with swings that run both ways. The two-by-two grid returns in navy on one zero-based 0–28% axis, with a dashed gold line at the old 20% maximum and a black rule at each game’s 24-month average: Twenty-One 12.72%, craps 16.22%, roulette 18.62%, baccarat 16.21%. Twenty-One and craps are unchanged and sit well below the dashed line. In the roulette panel seven bars poke through it with gold-hatched tops, the tallest labelled 23.03 in August 2025, and 21.89 and 21.85 labelled too. In the baccarat panel December 2024 pokes just past the line at 20.70 and January 2025 towers to 26.47, the tallest bar on the slide. Beneath the grid a dot strip plots each baccarat month as points away from its own 16.21% average, 13 above, 10 below and 1 level with it, from −7.67 in September 2025 to +10.26 in January 2025, the two ceiling months in gold. Cards on the right say the ceiling deleted 16.37 points of hold across nine bars, 9.20 from roulette and 7.17 from baccarat, 6.47 of them from January 2025 alone; that December 2024 (roulette 20.25, baccarat 20.70) and January 2025 (roulette 20.19, baccarat 26.47) were each drawn as identical pairs; that baccarat’s true range is 17.93 points against roulette’s 11.06, which the tile drew as 11.46 and 8.03; that “best month 20.00%” was where the panel stops, roulette’s real best being 23.03% and baccarat’s 26.47%; and that baccarat swings because a statewide month rests on far fewer, far larger wagers. A dark closing card reads “A shared ruler is a good idea. A ruler shorter than the data is not.” — Showing the misleading chart

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A table-games review slide we drew puts four Nevada games on one ruler — monthly statewide hold for Twenty-One, craps, roulette and baccarat, Sep 2024 to Aug 2026, every month the Gaming Control Board printed — and concludes that baccarat’s swings only run downward: its best month tops out at 20%, level with roulette’s, while its worst falls to 8.54%. The shared axis stops at 20% and the data does not. Nine bars ran past it and were drawn exactly 20% tall, among them January 2025, when baccarat held 26.47% — the highest monthly hold any of the four games has posted in a record that runs back to 2004. Run the ruler to 28% and baccarat’s swings run both ways.

Nevada Table Games: Historical Hold Percentage Variations, UNLV Special Collections & Archives (monthly statewide hold from the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Monthly Revenue Reports), 2026Added October 3, 2026

01The claim

A monthly hold review slide of the kind a table-games desk might circulate, which we drew from public numbers: four small multiples — Twenty-One, craps, roulette and baccarat — each showing Nevada’s statewide hold for the 24 months from September 2024 to August 2026. Hold is the casino’s win as a share of the drop, and every bar is the figure the Gaming Control Board printed for that game and month. The slide does a lot right: the bars start at zero, nothing is smoothed or left out, and all four panels share one fixed 0–20% axis so the games can be compared at a glance. Read that way, roulette and baccarat top out at exactly the same hold, 20.00%, while baccarat alone drops as low as 8.54% — so baccarat’s volatility looks like pure downside, and the slide recommends budgeting it as the riskier game and steering promotion toward roulette.

02The trick

The ceiling is a side effect of a good habit. Small multiples should share one axis, and this one does — but its 20% maximum looks as if it was set by the quiet panels, where Twenty-One never passed 14.99% and craps never passed 18.88%, and then applied to two games that regularly go past it. Nine bars did: seven of roulette’s and two of baccarat’s, each drawn exactly 20% tall, because a fixed maximum leaves a bar nowhere else to go. Most clipping stories are about a lost peak. This one is about spread. The ceiling cuts off only the top of each game’s range and leaves the bottom alone, so a game whose swings run both ways looks lopsided: baccarat’s true range of 17.93 points is drawn as 11.46, and its highest month — January 2025, 26.47%, the highest monthly hold any of the four games has posted in a record that runs back to 2004 — comes out the same height as roulette’s 20.19% that month. Even the count of bars at the top cannot be read off the panel: two of roulette’s unclipped months, 19.81% and 19.90%, sit within a hair of the seven that were clipped. The read-out’s “best month 20.00%” is the height of the frame, and the “downside only” conclusion is the shape of the ceiling.

03The fix

Keep the shared ruler and run it past the data. On one zero-based axis to 28%, with a dashed line where the old 20% maximum was and the overflow hatched, Twenty-One and craps look exactly as they did — the ceiling never touched them — while roulette pokes through seven times, peaking at 23.03% in August 2025, and baccarat’s January 2025 stands at 26.47%, 6.28 points above roulette’s for the same month. Altogether the ceiling had flattened 16.37 points of hold: 9.20 of roulette’s and 7.17 of baccarat’s, 6.47 of them in that one January. Baccarat’s swings turn out to run both ways. Over these 24 months it averaged 16.21%, finished 13 months above that, 10 below and one level with it, and the gap is larger on the high side (+10.26 points in January 2025) than the low side (−7.67 in September 2025). Its true range is 17.93 points against roulette’s 11.06; the slide drew them as 11.46 and 8.03. That is what makes baccarat baccarat: a statewide month rests on far fewer, far larger wagers than a month of Twenty-One, so a few tables’ luck moves it a long way in either direction. Two habits stop a chart like this. First, when panels share an axis, set the maximum from the largest value any panel reaches, not from the panel you looked at first. Where a fixed maximum really is needed, say to keep a tile comparable from month to month, make the overflow obvious: hatch or arrow the part that crosses it, print the value, and say in the caption how many marks went over. Second, never compute a “best” or “peak” from the drawing. A peak that equals the axis maximum is telling you about the chart’s settings, not about the data.